Picture of the Week #16

Hubble Space Telescope test model, National Air and Space Museum, Washington DC. September 2006.

In honor of the recovery of the primary camera on the Hubble Space Telescope, I chose this photo from the NASM for this week's picture. While I was following the news on Hubble's "safe mode" issues, I was pleasantly surprised to see that an old colleague of mine is the Lead Mission Systems Engineer for HST!

Picture of the Week #15

Academy of Natural Sciences - Natural History Museum in Philadelphia, summer 2006

With Halloween approaching, I decided to choose this giant walk-through skull as this week's photo.

Picture of the Week #14

This week's picture is a little different, in the fact that it is a photo that I didn't take or compile myself. This photo is from the TRACE spacecraft and is one of 21 spectacular images of the Sun featured at Boston.com's The Big Picture website.

Sunset from Hurricane Ike

This photo is from the evening before Hurricane Ike made landfall on Galveston, so the outer cloud bands had already started passing over central Texas. I think there was also some volcanic dust in the atmosphere then, which is what added some of the purple tint-- we got a stretch of really colorful sunsets (even when there were no clouds) courtesy of an Alaskan volcano around that time.

Click on the photo able to go to the Flickr set (only 7 photos since there were a lot that were very similar to one another)

Picture of the Week #13

Mars Pathfinder Lander and Sojourner Rover at the National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. September 2006.

The lander and airbags are actual engineering prototypes and the rover is a full-scale non-functional model built by JPL for the museum.

Picture of the Week #12

M 110 (NGC 205), satellite galaxy of the Andromeda Galaxy, taken with the Prime Focus Camera on the 30-inch telescope at McDonald Observatory in 1997 (AASTRA participants took the images and then I combined them into the final color image you see here.)

Picture of the Week #11

The Star of India, a star sapphire. American Museum of Natural History, New York. August 2006.

Another rock this week, but instead of a piece of Mars we have what is probably the largest star sapphire in the world. I loved the Gems and Minerals Hall at the AMNH and I never get tired of looking at similar exhibits in other museums. Lots of SHINY!

Picture of the Week #10

Moonrise after an evening storm, August 2005

Since tonight is the Harvest Moon for 2008 (at least according to the tradition of "full moon closest to the autumnal equinox"), I thought it was time for another moon photo.

Picture of the Week #9

Overview of part of the Texas Petawatt Laser. Robert Lee Moore Hall, University of Texas campus. August 28, 2008.

When I first heard about the giant new laser that UT was building, I had it in my brain that it was out at our Pickle Research Campus, so imagine my surprise to find it is in the basement of my own building! I've been a student or an employee in this building for 18 years (now, literally, half my life) and going to the laser open house gave me my first opportunity (that I can recall) to go to the first floor of this building. For the record, the ground level is the 4th floor. I know, it makes no sense.

When I was a student, the "technology in the basement" was a Tokamak, and now it's a big giant laser. At least there weren't any lawsuits or death threats over our nifty new piece of science equipment, unlike with the Large Hadron Collider.

Picture of the Week #8

The 2.7-meter (107-inch) Harlan J. Smith Telescope on at McDonald Observatory, near Fort Davis, Texas. December 2003.

The dome of this telescope was the first Picture of the Week, but I figured it was time to show the telescope itself.